This Is the End was written, produced and directed by two ''good Jewish boys'', as writer-producer Evan Goldberg and actor Seth Rogen describe themselves in our interview. So how did they come up with a comedy about the End of Days, as foretold in the Book of Revelation in the Bible?

''We always thought it was really funny that people genuinely think we are going to hell,'' muses 31-year-old Rogen, who also co-wrote Superbad (2007), Pineapple Express (2008) and The Green Hornet (2011) with Goldberg. ''We had a friend in high school who was really into the Christian thing and one day it came up conversationally, the heaven and hell debate, and we said, 'Do you honestly think we're going to hell?' and he said, 'It's a bummer, because I really like you, but yes I do!' That was such a funny concept to us that it led to the overall idea for the film, which was, 'What if he was right, what if the Book of Revelation was right and what would it look like?'''

In This Is the End, actors Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride and Jay Baruchel play versions of themselves as celebrities at a party at Franco's Los Angeles home when they think an earthquake has hit. It turns out to be the Rapture from Revelation, and the film spoofs numerous end-of-the-world disaster films and visions from the Bible as the guys struggle to survive and seek redemption in time to be saved.

Seth Rogen (right, with James Franco): 'We wanted the party to be full of people you did not expect.'

''Evan and I have always been huge fans of these big apocalyptic movies, but they always focus on what the President is doing or what the guy who is in charge of stopping the end of the world is doing,'' Rogen says. ''They don't really show you how six idiots are reacting to it, which is what I relate to. We always thought it would be fun to have famous people play themselves in some capacity, because they are the least-equipped people on the planet for the end of the world.''

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Other actors who make cameo appearances include Paul Rudd, Jason Segal, Michael Cera (who has a spectacular and early death scene), Mindy Kaling, Channing Tatum, Rihanna, the Backstreet Boys and Emma Watson, who has a raunchy scene that spoofs her Hermione persona. ''Every time someone asks me, 'Why the hell is Emma Watson in the movie?' I say, 'That's why she's in the movie!''' Rogen laughs. ''We wanted the party to be full of people you did not expect to be with us, because that's the reality if you go to these parties in Hollywood: random celebrities show up. I had a party once where Quentin Tarantino showed up and I didn't even know him!''

Rogen and Goldberg have been close friends since they met as young teenagers in an after-school Hebrew class in Vancouver. ''I knew him as the loud laughing guy and I was the loud guy from the other school, so we decided we should hang out,'' recalls Goldberg, 31, who was later a writer on Da Ali G Show starring Sacha Baron Cohen.

Rogen, who also starred in Judd Apatow's 2001 TV series Undeclared and the 2007 hit comedy Knocked Up, adds bluntly, ''We also bonded over being virgins'': ''That was the basis of us starting to write Superbad when we were around 14 [the film about two sexually inexperienced high-school students was finally made in 2007, starring Hill and Cera, and grossed an impressive $US169 million worldwide], so any fight that you can conceive of ever having with anybody in a professional relationship, we had them all when we were 16, so we're lucky we started so young.''

The pair say ''about 50 per cent'' of the film is improvised. ''We were both shocked by how far they were all willing to push it, and each one of them did something far more extreme than we ever would have had the nerve to ask them to do,'' Rogen says. ''I think people almost revelled in the opportunity to play into this perception people have and be like, 'Oh, you think I'm a stoner idiot? I'll show you!'''

THIS IS THE END Genre Action comedyCritical buzz Average reviews and lukewarm box-office in the US may limit the audience outside hardcore fans of this comedic acting troupe. It rates well on Rotten Tomatoes.Stars Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah HillDirector Seth Rogen, Evan GoldbergRated MA15+Release July 18